My Decision 2012: Women

Women

Lilly Ledbetter with President Obama

While I am not a woman, there are definitely some in my life that I care about, and pretty much everyone can relate to that. This is why I find it highly disturbing how the Republican Party has taken so many steps against women. Conversely, one of the first things that President Obama did in office was sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which allows women to recoup their losses when they find out that they have been paid less than their male counterparts doing the same job.

Many women, particularly those who can not afford health insurance, turn to Planned Parenthood for assistance. The GOP has positioned itself firmly against Planned Parenthood and taken steps to end federal funding of this organization (as well as many GOP-led states taking similar steps). Their main reason for doing this is because PP performs abortions. What these social conservatives have lost sight of, however, is that PP does a lot more, especially in the realm of preventative medicine. Breast cancer screenings, STD tests, and so forth, which ultimately can reduce the amount of care someone needs for a worse condition. The truly conservative stance would be to endorse PP (particularly given that federal funds do not go towards abortions anyway in any case). Mitt Romney is on record as saying “Planned Parenthood, gonna get rid of that.” Where will these women turn when they have nowhere else to go for these procedures? Apparently, Romney and the GOP do not care, whereas Barack Obama stands by Planned Parenthood and the women who depend on it.

We live in a country where we are supposed to be for equal treatment. While Mitt Romney has shown time and time again that he does not believe in this notion (honestly, who says "binders full of women" and thinks that's a good thing?), President Obama has been upholding it since day and, and he will continue to do so.

My Decision 2012: The Economy, Debt & Deficit

The Economy, the Debt & the Deficit

Mitt Romney has made it blatantly clear that not only would he return to the policies of President George W. Bush, he would take them even farther. That would be all well and good, except for that fact that those policies have been abject failures. The massive tax cuts known commonly as the “Bush tax cuts” erased the budget surplus from his predecessor President Bill Clinton. Economists have said time and again that tax cuts do not create jobs. The proof is in the fact that taxes are at historic lows while the unemployment rate went to a historic high. If tax cuts actually helped the economy the way Mitt Romney and the GOP often claim, America would be in a time of plenty. The longer the Bush tax cuts last (particularly those for the super rich), the more they will add to the national debt.Adding on top of the already 16 trillion dollar debt with a proposed 5 trillion dollar tax cut (mostly to the upper brackets, plus another 2 trillion dollars in EXTRA military spending) is not how to fix the national debt, though this is what Mitt Romney has proposed. America simply cannot afford that sort of trickle-down approach. It has been tried, and it has failed.

The budget plan endorsed by Mitt Romney was created by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), which is a name that I’ll mention in another segment. This budget plan cuts virtually any and very program that in any way helps the poor, needy, etc. In fact, it goes so far in doing so, that swaths of the religious establishment have arisen against it. Generally speaking, this group of folks is very GOP friendly. To illustrate this, a group of Catholic nuns went on a bus tour of the upper Midwest to protest this budget plan. This bus tour ended on the steps of the office building where Rep. Paul Ryan has his district office. Many other religious groups have also gone public with their disdain for this plan. When a Republican idea or plan goes so far off of the rails that religious groups are up in arms against it, you know that it has gone way past way too far, even by GOP standards. The word ‘radical’ comes to mind.

President Obama has gone on record saying that the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the super rich is a non-starter and he will veto any bill containing such a measure. President Obama is also for closing tax loopholes that allow the super rich to use dancing horses and private jets as tax right-offs which, in and of themselves, are often more than most people make in a year. He has also gone on-record as being against tax cuts that go to companies that outsource, instead favoring companies that bring jobs back to the United States. Cutting anything that benefit’s middle and lower income Americans to pay for tax breaks for the super rich and corporations (many of whom are already paying zero taxes or even negative taxes) is not a policy that benefits America as a whole. Conversely, Obama's policies have led to over 30 straight months of job creation, a drop in the deficit from about 1.9 trillion dollars to just under 1.1 trillion dollars. President Obama’s policies will do far more to help the economy and the national deficit than any policy proposed by Mitt Romney. In fact, they already have. We are going in the correct direction and we should not turn back.

My Decision 2012: Education

Education

Undoubtedly, education is the investment that we make in the next generation. When we cut that investment, we cut the return. As it stands, American children are falling behind in education compared to many of their foreign counterparts, especially in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. In light of this, one would think that we as a nation would focus on education more than ever before. Instead, Mitt Romney and the GOP want to slash education spending to the bone.

There seems to be any overall animus that the Republican Party has towards education. During a debate in the primary season, when asked what cabinet departments they would abolish, most (if not all) of the candidates included the Department of Education. The Ryan budget, which was endorsed by Mitt Romney calls for large cuts in Pell Grants and other forms of financial aid. There are thousands upon thousands of students who are up to the task of attending university but need help with funding their education.

America is supposed to be the land of opportunity. Many of the opportunities that people have are the result of education. Mitt Romney and the GOP want to cut those opportunities for millions. President Obama wants to preserve these opportunities for students to attain an education that will make them competitive in the global labor market, for which he was called a snob by former Senator/presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA) to the sound of Republican agreement. This really shows the anti-intellectual sentiment in the GOP, and shows why they are unfit to lead. President Obama wants to ensure that the investments that we make in the future are maintained so that it will be brighter for the next generation.

My Decision 2012: LGBT Equality

LGBT Equality

Mitt Romney is no friend to the LGBT community, not even those conservative/Republican LGBT’s who plan on voting for him. Despite the fact that he ran to the left of Senator Teddy Kennedy on LGBT issues during his 1994 attempt at elected office, he has since flip-flopped. Now, he is for enshrining discrimination into the United States Constitution. This shows that he has no regard for the concept of equal protections under the law which is in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. If he has no regard for the Constitution, how does he intend to execute the oath of office he would have to take as President (I.e. upholding the United States Constitution)?

Aside from marriage, he went on record as being against the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy which kept gay people from serving openly. While he has since said that he would not try to reinstate DADT, Mitt Romney has shown a penchant for switching his opinions on issues. How long until he does so on this policy? As soon as the religious right applies the appropriate amount of pressure, he will start talking out of the other side of his mouth yet again.

President Obama has gone on record as supporting marriage equality and has stopped his administration from defending the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act” when it faces the courts system (which it has done many, many times in the last few years). President Obama also signed into law the repeal of DADT. The President is a supporter of the "Employment Non-Discrimination Act." He has even done an “It Gets Better” video in a campaign to fight against suicides that result from the homophobic bullying experienced by the nation’s LGBT youth. Does anyone honestly think that Mitt Romney would take such a step as that? He has had the opportunity to, yet has not.

The only way that LGBT equality will move forward at the federal level, the courts not withstanding, is with President Obama winning this election. He has already given the community more than any other president, and I wholeheartedly believe that he will take us even farther towards equal rights, making this country a more perfect union with liberty and justice FOR ALL!

My Decision 2012: The Courts

The Courts

The importance of the federal courts is greatly underestimated. Most people pay attention to them once or twice a year. However, given the tightness of the Citizens United decision, the importance of the courts can not be stressed enough. The Supreme Court is ideologically split: four conservative, four liberals, and one swing vote. This was the way the Citizens United decision came down (5-4) and why corporate personhood was upheld…unfortunately. There are also many challenges to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act that will come through the court in the near future.

Given the current ages of some of the sitting Supreme Court justices, it is quite likely that at least one or more will retire in the next four years. With the deluge of marriage equality cases hitting SCOTUS and other parts of the federal court system, as well as cases regarding other policy areas, who fills these posts will be of paramount importance.  It is, thus, vital for the president who will be nominating judges for these seats to know the difference between corporations and people, believes in equal protections under the law, and does not have an “I got mine, you’re on your own” mentality. President Barack Obama must be the man to fill these judicial posts with the proper pro-Constitution jurists.

My Decision 2012: The Vice President

The Vice President

Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) is the person that Mitt Romney has chosen to be his running mate. Unfortunately, Ryan has a worldview that runs counter to everything American. He is on-record as saying that he has based much of his political beliefs on Ayn Rand’s writings. Her writings and opinions (which I have mentioned elsewhere) are based on greed and utter selfishness. Much of what most people, regardless of their place on the political spectrum, believe to be good and admirable Rand believes to be bad and undesirable. There is film of Rand talking about her beliefs.

This is the person that potential Vice President Paul Ryan uses as a foundation of governing. Should Romney win the election and thereafter something happens to him rendering him unable to execute his office, is Paul Ryan the person you would want in the Oval Office? For my part, that is a huge NO. The foundation of America has never been selfishness. We are in this country together. We work together to form a more perfect union. Though some would try to paint that as socialism or communism, it has in actuality been what made this land great: from the days of the colonies and the revolution to today.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden understand this, and it has been a guiding philosophy of theirs since day one. We saw it in the economic recovery act, we saw it in the Affordable Healthcare Act. We see it in how this administration is pushing for rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure on which we all, from the wealthiest to the poorest, depend on a daily basis. The people in charge should realize that no person  is an island, nor does he or she, no matter how much drive they have, succeed solely on their own. We are like a team: we win together, and we lose together.

My Decision 2012: Corporate Personhood

Corporatocracy & Corporate Personhood

To most people, there is an obvious difference between a corporation and a person. A corporation is a business whose primary goal is to turn a profit. A person is a flesh and blood, sentient being like you and I. As Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) put it at the DNC Convention, “People have hearts, they have kids, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die, and that matters.” Very few people will confuse one for the other. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, does NOT see the difference. In the midst of the GOP primaries, he went on-record during a rally saying to an attendee, “Corporations are people my friend.” I don’t want a president who is so unintelligent that he does not know the difference between a corporation and a person.

Luckily, President Obama does see the difference between the two. In fact, during the State of the Union address that followed the Supreme Court’s affirmation of corporate personhood (via the Citizens United decision), President Obama rebuked those Supreme Court justices (the five that supported corporate personhood) to their faces, in front of Congress, and in front of a watching nation. Undoing corporate personhood is very important because of the consequences that can ensue. Some of those consequences have already shown themselves.

Sheldon Adelson

The problem with corporate personhood and the Citizens United decision is that they allow corporations to give excessive amounts of money towards political aims. In essence, it allows corporations to buy elections. We are already seeing the consequences of this today, a mere few years after Citizens United. We have seen billionaires, most notably the infamous Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, pledging hundreds of millions of dollars towards a single election cycle. Adelson recently pledged $500,000 to a single House candidate.

With that kind of money going into political campaigns from a select few donors, especially given that much of it will go towards negative ads and misinformation on either side, how can one call our system of government a democracy? The amount of money put forth by the few will drown out the voices of the many. The road to getting rid of this corrupt system of campaign finance will be a long and uncertain one. One thing is crystal clear, that road will not and can not begin with a Romney presidency.

My friends, corporations are NOT people. Romney does not understand that simple fact, but President Obama does.